


Sunce Varko No Fijas Jednako

by semaphoredrivethru



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Action, Angst, Drama, Gen, Mildly Dubious Consent, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-03 12:59:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semaphoredrivethru/pseuds/semaphoredrivethru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I have no way to describe this but like this:</p><p>I've killed off the entire Jedi Order in a microcosm to the rhythm of a TS Eliot poem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunce Varko No Fijas Jednako

**Author's Note:**

> _Inspiration came from Angie, who showed me through her own work that fan fiction can still be good, even if it does not contain any of the cannon characters._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Poem is "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot.

I .

We are the hollow men  
We are the stuffed men  
Leaning together  
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!  
Our dried voices, when  
We whisper together  
Are quiet and meaningless  
As wind in dry grass  
Or rat's feet over broken glass  
In our dry cellar.

Shape without form, shade without color,  
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed  
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom  
Remember us - if at all – not as lost  
Violent souls, but only  
As the hollow men  
The stuffed men.

~*~*~

A Jedi is never alone. That was one of the first truths that Shrinda had learned. No matter the distance that separated one from another, all a Jedi had to do was reach deep within his or her mind, and there it would be; that beautiful, glowing connection that kept all Jedi tied together, melded their thoughts, and sang their children to sleep. That one portion of a Jedi's mind was always active, thinking, sharing, and loving.

After she had given birth to her daughter, Shrinda had also learned to find different voices in the quiet, comforting babble. She could find her family and loved ones easiest, and had not hesitated when she needed strength and love. Jedi were more than just warriors - they were, friends, lovers, mothers, and fathers, and above it all, they were each other's strength.

And now, Shrinda needed that strength, though she feared to draw on it.

When the killings had first begun, the Jedi had pulled together, coalescing to protect their own before they realized it only made things worse. The Jedi, the very beings who had stood for truth, life, and freedom for thousands of years, were being hunted as animals. They were being painted as unfeeling, power-hungry monstrous abominations that should not be allowed to live, much less gather together in a group that could kill the thousands of millions of innocent citizens that the Empire watched over.

And so they had left. Only a few at a time, and mostly at night. Those who tried otherwise were either captured by the Imperial Troops, or torn asunder by angry mobs looking to blame their misfortune on anyone.

Now the great Jedi Temple of Coruscant stood empty, its proud towers crumbling, and the Jedi had been left with a single, final order:

If you value the lives of your brothers and sisters, be as if you are already dead.

Such simple words, Shrinda thought, for such an impossible request; the Jedi were to never use the Force again. Not even to find each other.

Ironic that she should have survived the riots, the raids, the deaths of thousands of Jedi, including her own Padawan, and the long fight to be as far from the Temple as possible, only to give up that which she had fought for all her life. Tears streamed down her face, but Shrinda made no move to stop them as she knelt on the floor of the empty hangar, deep in the lowest levels of Coruscant that ships dared to reach. There was no one to see.

She was alone.

~*~*~

II.

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams  
In death's dream kingdom  
These do not appear:  
There, the eyes are  
Sunlight on a broken column  
There, is a tree swinging  
And voices are  
In the wind's singing  
More distant and more solemn  
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer  
In death's dream kingdom  
Let me also wear  
Such deliberate disguises  
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves  
In a field  
Behaving as the wind behaves  
No nearer.

Not that final meeting  
In the twilight kingdom.

~*~*~

Shrinda had thought of her children nearly every moment since her flight had begun more than three standard weeks earlier. Had their Masters gotten them safely away? Were they now learning Jedi lore in secret, with nothing but a handful of chiplights and a shoddy cover story?

Were they even still alive?

It was so tempting to search the Force for her babies. Joi had turned 22 years before she and her master had run. Perhaps she had been made a Knight since then. Shrinda smiled; she still had trouble seeing Joi as more than the sweet little girl who had first tried to use her mother's lightsaber when she was five, and had been so happy to be a big sister when she was six.

Efran had gone with Joi and her master. His master had been too far from Coruscant to fetch the 16 year-old boy, and Joi wouldn't have even considered leaving her only brother behind. They had left, planning to find Master Terrik, and to band together as a family until Shrinda and her husband could join them.

But Airik, husband to Shrinda and father to Joi and Efran, would not be joining them. He had already joined the Force.

He and Shrinda had planned to escape through the ancient sewer systems of Coruscant. Not exactly a dignified exit, but one they were more likely to succeed in than most others were. They had left behind their soft, beige robes, and had changed into cheap, graying clothes that were frayed at the hems. Even their lightsabers should have been left behind, but the two Jedi had known they would die for certain if they had no weapons.

They had not gotten far when they were set upon by the first pack of thieves. Fearful to reveal themselves, the couple had fought hand-to-hand, barely managing to escape without using the Force. As it was, Airik sustained a cut to his shoulder from the jagged piece of metal one of the thieves had brandished. Instead of resting, they pressed on. The pilot who they had contracted to smuggle them off of Coruscant would only wait so long.

~*~*~

III. 

This is the dead land  
This is the cactus land  
Here the stone images  
Are raised, here they receive  
The supplication of a dead man's hand  
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this  
In death's other kingdom  
Waking alone  
At the hour when we are  
Trembling with tenderness  
Lips that would kiss  
Form prayers to broken stone.

~*~*~

Airik had died only days later.

The infection had been swift and deadly, taking even the two seasoned fighters by surprise. Shrinda suspected some kind of poison, but there would have been no way to get an antidote anyhow. All she could do was sit by, wiping the fever-sweat from her husband's brow, whispering lies to keep him happy.

Yes, they had made it.

No, the children had not been harmed.

Yes, he was fine.

The last, he had known as a lie, but had only smiled, and ignored the Force-dampening collar around his neck that Shrinda had activated to prevent him from reaching for the Force. In a lucid moment, he had kissed the back of her hand just as he had when they were first courting, nearly twenty-five years before. She had smiled through her tears, and gave him words of truth to take with him to the Force.

I love you.

When her husband's body had burned to the last ash, Shrinda had forced herself to keep walking, running, crawling, and whatever else it would take to get away. Her children deserved to know of their father's death, and despite her pain, Shrinda had no wish to join him as yet. Forbidden to use the Force, forbidden to be the woman she had been for every one of her 53 years, Shrinda was still a Jedi, and a Jedi was still hope for the very galaxy that had turned against her.

~*~*~

IV.

The eyes are not here  
There are no eyes here  
In this valley of dying stars  
In this hollow valley  
This broken jaw of our lost kingdom.  
In the last of meeting places  
We grope together  
And avoid speech  
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless  
The eyes reappear  
As the perpetual star  
Multifoliate rose  
Of death's twilight kingdom  
The hope only  
Of empty men.

~*~*~

The hangar was empty when she finally reached it. Doubtless the man had tired of waiting, and had left his tardy cargo to rot. Shrinda had wanted to scream and rage, but had forced herself to only seethe quietly. She couldn't chance discovery, not when there was still the slim chance she could find someone else to help her.

At first, she had spent the hours between dusk and dawn, prowling the streets, searching for any stray gossip about a pilot that might help her. But when her fourth would-be murderer lay in a bloody pile at her feet, Shrinda had realized that all she was doing was courting the same fate as Airik. And so she spent the nights after keeping watch over the stars.

The stars, since long before any species had learned the secrets of flight and science, had held a universal fascination. Everyone, even Jedi, stared at them as though searching for the answers of life's most difficult questions. Did they hold the afterlife? The secret to the immortality? Were they the embodiment of the Force itself?

Stars were nothing more than gasses and light, though. And many of them had long since been extinguished by the cosmic fates. Yet still, even with the scores of species flying through space, cultures still looked to the skies as if for Divine inspiration, assistance, or some other great bolt from above.

Shrinda looked up, the myriad of pinpoint lights filling her eyes. At that very moment, she was giving off light as well, a light that very might well be seen across the galaxy by two lonely Jedi children who looked to the skies for the parents who might never arrive.

~*~*~

Finaly, the Force brought Shrinda the answer to her prayers -- passage away from Coruscant, and to the very system her children waited for her in.

She would have thought herself too old for the pilot's tastes. But then, Shrinda knew it had less to do with the sex, and more with power. Either way, the young man was going to get her off of the ghost planet that had been the capitol of the Republic.

With a knot in her stomach, she boarded the small craft that would take her and three other human refugees, a woman Shrinda's age, her daughter, and the girl's infant son, far away from this nightmare. The ship was really only big enough for two or three people, but it would do.

For the first time since Airik's death, Shrinda allowed herself to feel hope. Soon, if she were lucky, she would be with her children again. With a mother's fierce conviction, she knew that Joi and Efran were alive and safe.

That night, as they hurtled through space, she slept as soundly as a babe.

~*~*~

She was looking out the forward view when the streaming beams of light suddenly became normal stars again. The pilot and co-pilot began to curse in several rough languages, all of which Shrinda knew. The hyperdrive had died, and they were light years from the nearest safe planet. 

In silence, she watched the two men play with various dials. After a few moments, the ship began to move again, but the hyperdrive was making grinding noises that did not bode well for their limping ship.

~*~*~

V.

Here we go round the prickly pear  
Prickly pear prickly pear  
Here we go round the prickly pear  
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea  
And the reality  
Between the motion  
And the act  
Falls the Shadow

For thine is the Kingdom 

Between the conception  
And the creation  
Between the emotion  
And the response  
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long 

Between the desire  
And the spasm  
Between the potency  
And the existence  
Between the essence  
And the descent  
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom 

For Thine is  
Life is  
For Thine is the

~*~*~

It was the best they could do, and it would have been fine if there hadn’t been so many people onboard. But rerouting the life-support systems to give the hyperdrive enough power to get the to a safe port was the only option. All the people on the small ship could do was pray they wouldn’t run out of breathable air first.

Using the distress beacon was right out, since the Empire did not take kindly to smugglers, and even less so to smugglers with living cargo. The risk of suffocating to death as the six people gradually used up the breathable air was preferable to encountering a patrol of Storm Troopers.

When the co-pilot had informed the others of what was going on, the young woman, barely twenty, had held her baby son tightly against her chest, and cried. Her mother had tried to shush her, but the girl only cried louder.

Shrinda had merely sat in her corner, watching the scene unfold. Once, before the madness had over-taken the Galaxy, Shrinda would have at least tried to comfort the girl. But now, all she did was watch with a dispassionate eye. Deep in her heart, she knew they were likely beyond comfort and help.

~*~*~

After the first day, they had accepted that they weren't going to make it.

Tired of the warning bells announcing the low levels of breathable air, the co-pilot had disabled them by putting his fist through that part of the panel. Fortunately, there was no electrical fire to burn off any of the precious oxygen. 

Unfortunately, he also knocked out the ship's heating system. Gradually, their small metal tomb got colder and colder, until Shrinda could see her own breath condensing in the thinning air. Extra clothes and blankets were passed around so that they might preserve what little body heat they had left, but Shrinda saw the ice crystals forming on the co-pilot's mustache and he shivered in his partner's arms. The girl and her baby curled up with the girl's mother, conserving body heat.

Shrinda was left on her own.

The grandmother was the first one to die, twelve hours later. She took a wheezy breath, coughed twice, and then fell into a slumber she never woke from. Unwilling to loose any air through the airlock, the pilot had placed the dead woman in the small cargo space. The woman's daughter, still clutching her squirming baby, had protested the pilot's careless treatment of a corpse.

When the pilot died hours later, the girl dragged him into the cargo space herself. The co-pilot was left in his chair, eternally staring out into space. Shrinda would have helped, but she had lost control of her consciousness, and was drifting in and out of sleep filled with dreams of her husband, glowing with the Force and coming for her.

When she was a child, Shrinda used to have terrible dreams and her mother used to sing a soft lullaby to her at nights, crooning softly until the fear was gone, until her tears stopped. She sang every night until the dreams stayed away for good. Such a beautiful song... Hush little baby...

Shrinda shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs of her half-waking dream. She could almost hear her infant-self crying for the comfort of her mother's touch...

No, it was the baby. He was still in his mother's arms, but the young woman's eyes stared blankly into nothingness. Shrinda found herself crawling over them, checking the girl's pulse. There were no stirrings beneath the cold skin. The baby cried again, desperate for contact.

The Jedi looked at the baby, and remembered the sweet baby faces of her own children, both who had suffered more than any children ever should. Oh, that she could have saved them such pain! 

Shrinda gazed down at the infant who was slated for the same slow and lonely death as she. But while Shrinda understood what was happening to her, the baby only knew coldness, confusion, and pain. Without a second thought, she picked up the baby, and rocked him in her arms. She began to hum a song, even as her hand covered his nose and mouth.

When he stopped struggling, and his little limbs fell still, she placed the limp form in his mother's arms. Shrinda sang softly as she closed the girl's sightless eyes.

Hush little baby...

~*~*~

So cold. So very cold.

There was so little oxygen left, every breath hurt. 

One of the first lessons a Jedi learned, was how to cope with pain. Center on the pain, focus on it, and then just let it go.

Shrinda inhaled deeply, her chest expanding to its limits...

Held the breath in...

And let go.

~*~*~

This is the way the world ends  
This is the way the world ends  
This is the way the world ends  
Not with a bang but with a whimper.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a Serbian folk song, and translated it means "Come, my dearest, why so sad this morning?" It is credited as being part of the basis for Tchaikovsky's ' _Marche_ _Slave,_ a song titled in honor of the Serbian heroes of the Serbian war.


End file.
